Content by Charles Sterling

Tell us how we are doing

The Visual Studio development team is looking to prioritize their development efforts, unfortunately without your input this can often be a challenging task -and of questionable value…If you have a chance please answer the questions below and drop me a piece of mail Chass@microsoft.com

1.Which Microsoft products or applications do you use or integrate into your development projects?Select all that apply.

a.Windows XP

b.Windows Vista

c.Windows Server 2003

d.Windows Server 2008

e.Visual Studio 2003 / .NET 1.1 or earlier

f.Visual Studio 2005 / .NET 2.0

g.Visual Studio 2008 / .NET 3.5

h.Office XP or earlier

i.Office 2003

j.Office 2007

k.SQL Server 2000

l.SQL Server 2005

m.Internet Explorer 6

n.Internet Explorer 7

o.Other (specify)

p.None[EXCLUSIVE]

q.Not sure[EXCLUSIVE]

2.How satisfied are you with the overall development experience using each of these Microsoft products or applications?

a.Windows XP

b.Windows Server 2003

c.Windows Server 2008

d.Visual Studio 2003 / .NET 1.1 or earlier

e.Visual Studio 2005 / .NET 2.0

f.Visual Studio 2008 / .NET 3.5

g.Office XP or earlier

h.Office 2003

i.Office 2007

j.SQL Server 2000

k.SQL Server 2005

l.Internet Explorer 6

m.Internet Explorer 7

Dissatisfied (1)Satisfied (9)

3.How satisfied are you with your ability to build secure solutions using each of these Microsoft products or applications?

a.Windows XP

b.Windows Server 2003

c.Windows Server 2008

d.Visual Studio 2003 / .NET 1.1 or earlier

e.Visual Studio 2005 / .NET 2.0

f.Visual Studio 2008 / .NET 3.5

g.Office XP or earlier

h.Office 2003

i.Office 2007

j.SQL Server 2000

k.SQL Server 2005

l.Internet Explorer 6

m.Internet Explorer 7

Dissatisfied (1)Satisfied (9)

4.Which of these application type technologies do you use?Select all that apply.

a.Windows Forms

b.WPF

c.Silverlight

d.ASP.NET

e.ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit

f.Office/VSTO

g.Office/COM

h.Office/VBA

i.Database

j.Workflow

k.Application server

l.Other (specify)

5.How would you rate the quality of (1 low 9 high)?

a.Windows Forms

b.WPF

c.Silverlight

6.How would you rate the productivity of (1 low 9 high)?

a.Windows Forms

b.WPF

c.Silverlight

7.How would you rate the performance of(1 low 9 high)?

a.Windows Forms

b.WPF

c.Silverlight

8.How often do you find the information you’re looking for in the following places? (1 low 9 high)?

a.Visual Studio Help

b.Microsoft online locations (MSDN, Dev Centers, Blogs etc.)

c.Non-Microsoft websites

9.How would you rate the security of(1 low 9 high)?

a.Windows Forms

b.WPF

c.Silverlight

10.How would you rate the suitability to the task of (1 low 9 high)?

a.Windows Forms

b.WPF

c.Silverlight

11.Which project technology do you use most often with the ASP.NET application?

a.WAP – Web application projects

b.Web Sites

c.Both about the same

d.Neither

e.Not sure

12.When developing a solution, how important are the following criteria in the software you develop?

a.Minimize defects and bugs

b.Usability

c.Ability to update

d.Maintainability

e.Extendibility / Flexibility

f.Robustness

g.Correctness

h.Secure from malicious attacks

i.Project completed on-time

Not At AllExtremely

Important (1)Important (9)

13.What other criteria are important to you when developing software?

14.How well does VS support you in your code maintenance tasks in the following ways(1 low 9 high)?

a.Ability to maintain, update, and refactor existing code base

b.Helps me test my applications

c.Helps me with the debugging of my application

15.How well does VS support application deployment in the following ways(1 low 9 high)?

When answering the next few questions, please think about a recent development project your organization has deployed or one that your organization is currently working on that is close to completion.

26.Please rate how geographically distributed the people working on this recent project were, including people helping from outside your own company.For example, if team members were located around the world, the team would be considered “Highly Distributed Geographically”, whereas if all team members were located in the same area, they would be considered “Not Distributed Geographically”.

Not Distributed GeographicallyHighly distributed geographically

(Located in the same office) (1)(Located around the world) (9)

123456789

27.How important would you say this recent project is to the primary business of the organization that will be using it?For example, the primary business of an insurance company is selling insurance, so an online e-commerce tool which directly impacts this function would be considered very important. However, a tool to track executives’ expense reports which is less involved with selling insurance would be considered less important.

a.Not At All ImportantVery Important

b.123456789

28.How important would you say this recent project is to the internal operations of the organization that will be using it?For example, an internal tool used to track sales would be considered very important, while a tool to organize employees’ parking permits would not be.

a.Not At All ImportantVery Important

b.123456789

29.Please rate how structured most of your organization’s development efforts are. In other words, does your organization tend to “jump right in” to projects or plan them out systematically?

a.Not At All StructuredVeryStructured

b.123456789

30.What one thing could Visual Studio do to support you in your development work?